Unique
by aconsultingwizard
Summary: Who cares if you're part of the crowd? This will be (hopefully) a collection of people who don't go with the flow at Hogwarts
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter

Written for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft &amp; Wizardry (Challenges &amp; Assignments): Potions (Assignment 2)

Prompt: Write about someone who's not very 'in'

Word Count: 500 (ish)

* * *

Yeah, I'm not 'cool' or 'popular'. I'm not one of those perfect little witches who spends hours making themselves look pretty and who's greatest ambition is to marry some lovely wizard and have perfect little magic babies. I'm not even one of those _rebellious_ witches who's fallen in love with a muggle and disgraced the family name.

I just don't care.

People in the muggle world think they've got corrupt and discriminative governments- they should try living in the wizarding world. Women are treated as second class, muggles are treated like a different specie and most families have _slaves. _It's hardly the happily-ever-after you read about in fairy stories.

The girls at school don't understand why I don't try and fit in. They don't get why I cut my hair short even though it's against what their stupid magazines advise. One girl tried to use a regrowth potion on it! My hair is awesome, it's unique, not like all those perfectly moulded witches I have to share a dorm with. They all have the same hair and the same sickly sweet smile and the same stupid giggle. They don't like me, and as long as they don't bother me I ignore them. Unfortunately it can be difficult to ignore their high pitched squeals and the huge quantities of perfume that choke me every time I walk in to my room but I manage.

My cutting sarcasm and refusal to go anywhere without my head phones (Yeah my music doesn't work at Hogwarts but they still block out the noise) means that there are very few people who put up with my company, but that's the way I like it.

Because I'd like an actual job, and I'd rather not eat food prepared by slaves, and I'm willing to protest until I, and others, get the rights we deserve, I'm labelled a troublemaker. I'm a social outcast and sure, sometimes it's lonely, but I'd rather have a few friends who can think for themselves than be part of the crowd, who's mass produced opinions are uneducated and tiresome.

Popularity's overrated anyway. Who wants to wake up hours earlier than they have to so they can make themselves look beautiful and wear exactly the right clothes (Basically the same as everyone else's clothes since we have a _uniform_, but I mean the length of your skirt is_ obviously _an important issue). I'd rather spend the time reading the newspaper and finding out what's going on in the real world. Of course, most of the time the newspaper lies, but at least it can usually be counted on to report all the most important events.

So yeah, I'm different. But I don't give a damn.

* * *

Psst... Like it? I feel suddenly excited and like I should write more of these... can I have a little gang of badasses at Hogwarts?

(Also this was really short but I had a tight word limit sorry)


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I still don't own Harry Potter

Written for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft &amp; Wizardry (Challenges &amp; Assignments): Major &amp; Minor Arcana (Assignment 2)

Prompt: Write about a character looking inside themselves whilst going through a hard time, and trying to find their inner peace. However, it CAN'T be a sad fic, and there has to be a happy ending.

Um warnings maybe? I don't really know but there's mention of attempted suicide and a lot of depressed feelings about self worth so be careful x

Word Count: 560 (ish)

* * *

Hogwarts is one of the most lonely places in the world. It's so big, anyone can be overlooked.

Most people don't overlook me when they first meet me. I'm tall and heavy built, so at first I look intimidating, but as soon as kids discover I'm really a pathetic and insecure mess they start the bullying. I'm a disappointment to my family- the third son in a long line of purebloods and the only one to turn out to be a complete coward.

I used to hardly be able to get out of bed in the morning because I knew that by the end of the day I'd end up crying in the toilets. I ate almost continuously, it was the only thing I enjoyed. The hidden room behind the tapestry on the fourth floor became my refuge. No one disturbed me ther, no one's opinions came to interrupt my peace. There i could forget about everything and let my mind relax.

Until I met Lena I was lost, drifting through an ocean of fear and turbulence. I owe everything to her. She saved me.

At my lowest, at the time when I felt the worst I kept a diary, a record of how I felt. My dorm mates, the cool jocks, the kind of person I've always dreamt of being, stole it. They only got through a page or two before I realised what they were doing. It's the angriest I've ever been. I punched their stupid ringleader and he went tumbling backwards. After that I ran.

I kept running, not really caring where I was going. Eventually I had to stop, wheezing for breath. No one followed me, and that was the moment I realised that no one actually cared what happened to me.

I figured it would be easy to just disappear. With magic I could make everything go away. The pain, the anger, all the feelings, all the life would just go away.

I couldn't do it.

I thought that meant I was the lowest of the low. I was too cowardly to even kill myself.

I slunk back to the school in disgrace. The headmaster looked at me sadly and gave me a detention but I didn't care. I sat alone at dinner like usual, the rest of my House all seeming to squirm as far away from me as possible.

That's when I met Lena.

Everyone is sort of half intimidated by and half in love with Lena. She doesn't really care about anyone or anything and she's oblivious to most things.

She just walked over and sat down opposite me. A couple of guys wolf whistled but she ignored them. She's not even in our House but no one said anything.

She just ate her dinner like it was the most normal thing she'd ever done. I watched her dumbfoundedly but she seemed unconcerned. When she was done with her meal she started on mine and I eventually snatched it back. It was kind of surreal.

After that I followed her around everywhere. I was like a puppy and I guess it would have been embarassing to look back on had I not already endured far worse. Now Lena and I are friends. I don't think she'll ever really know how much it means to me, but she was my saving grace.


	3. Chapter 3

Written for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft &amp; Wizardry (Challenges &amp; Assignments): Charms (Assignment 2)

Prompt: Write about someone who feels invisible.

Word Count: 610 (ish)

Warning: Mentions of suicide and self harm

* * *

People don't _see_ me.

Their eyes slide past me, their brains unconsciously rendering me invisible.

No one knows what to say to me, how to look at me like I'm one of them.

It's too awkward, too shameful. When they are forced to acknowledge me they do so clumsily. I am taboo, to be avoided at all costs.

I know they still talk about me behind my back, but as soon as I'm in the same room as them it's like I don't exist. The few friends that I had before the _incident_ never came to visit me in the hospital wing, and when I was let out they acted as if the last few years had never happened. Even the professors are awkward around me, as if they're scared to do anything that might upset me.

I have weekly check-ups with Madame Pomfrey, her trying every kind of revealing spell to make sure that no new scars decorate my wrist. Every month a healer at St Mungo's examines me, checking that I'm sane enough to carry on at school. None of them understand that that just makes it worse.

I don't hurt myself anymore. The memories of the thin streams of red running down my arms no longer brings pleasure. I don't need pain to tether me to this world. Instead I write about it. I fill page after page with scribblings; observations, thoughts, desires. Sometimes I destroy them straight away, burning them or releasing them into the wind so that no one else can ever read what I write. I learned a year ago that dying wouldn't solve anything, so I have to get rid of those feelings another way. Writing is like capturing those thoughts and then releasing them. They don't stay bottled up inside me, but they don't hurt anyone else either.

It hurts though, to know that even if I change, even if I get better, everyone else will still only remember me as the girl who tried to kill herself.

I know that when they look at me they don't see me, they see the girl who stood atop the astronomy tower and shakily stepped out into the storm. They remember me falling, hair whipped around by the wind, limbs flailing helplessly.

Afterwards they tried to convince themselves that I had been cursed. When they finally gave up on that theory they decided it must have been an accident. They told me how lucky I was that the Headmaster had been out for a walk and had been quick thinking enough to cast a cushioning charm. They didn't understand how I could do it, why I could do it.

If they can't see me they don't have to ask themselves those questions. They can pretend it never happened, so they just blot me out of their lives. They shun me, trying to convince themselves that I don't want to talk to them, that it will be easier for both of us if they ignore me. They're wrong. It might be easier for them but I crave human contact. I want desperately to stand up and announce to the world that I am alive. I want someone to look at me and see _me_, the real me. I want someone to talk to me and to listen, _really listen_ to what I have to say.

But I can't have what I want, because I'm the invisible girl. I didn't die, but I ceased to exist to everyone around me.


End file.
